If you think that this image is frightening, turn around because you have seen NOTHING.

Devilman is a manga and anime franchise enormously popular and influential in Japan for combining superhero tropes with supernatural and religious horror, with elements inspired by the Abrahamic religions exotic to Japanese eyes. It was created by the (in)famous Go Nagai in 1972 as a reworking of his earlier Demon Lord Dante. The manga was originally made to promote the concurrent anime by Toei Animation, which Nagai worked on along with veteran scenario writer and novelist Masaki Tsuji and which was Lighter and Softer than Dante, but it soon revealed its own much, muchDarker and Edgier direction. It has spawned several spin-offs over the decades and was later adapted into two OVAs in 1987 and 1990 covering the first two volumes, a CD Drama covering the planned final battle for the cancelled OVA series, and a live action movie in 2004.

A teenage boy named Akira Fudo, living with his female friend Miki Makimura and her family due to absent parents, discovers the Earth is being invaded by demons. His other friend, an unusual boy named Ryo Asuka, convinces him that the only way to stop the demons is to merge with one of them. Akira gains the ability to transform into a superpowerful, batlike demon. As Devilman, he fights bizarre demons, most notably the harpy-like Siren, and the turtle-like Jinmen, while still trying to lead a normal life.

While the TV series was dark by shonen anime standards, the manga and most other versions are pure horror, filled with things like graphic violence and dismemberment.

The events of Devilman lead into Nagai's later sequel series Violence Jack and Devilman Lady, which were similarly violent and controversial. Its characters have also appeared in other manga and anime shows and movies, meeting Nagai's other famous creations like Mazinger Z and Cutey Honey.

To promote the final OVAApocalypse of Devilman in 1999, Go Nagai resurrected the manga in two forms; one is a collection of short stories entitled Neo-Devilman where he and many other writers/artists (17 to be precise) contribute to the Devilman mythos with their own spin-offs and visions for the original tale, the other is where Nagai teamed up with Yuu Kinutani to create a 6 Volume manga simply called AMON, which is centered around and expands the events between humanity's persecution of demon/human hybrids and the final battle between Devilman and Satan. Go Nagai scripts and Yuu Kinutani provides pencils with high detailed art. In 2005 they two teamed up again to create Strange Days, a single manga volume centered around a group of Devilmen, Kira and Ryuu, clashing at Devilman vs. Satan's final battle; it tells their story of how their rivalry came to be during the persecution against Devilmen.

A new Devilman manga, Devilman Grimoire, began running in Champion Red magazine on 19 April 2012. It is written by Go Nagai and illustrated by Rui Takato. A Reboot of the original manga, it starred Akira Fudo and Miki Makimura, who believes herself to be a witch. It features many characters from the original Devilman. It remains to be seen whether this series is connected to previous series of the Devilman universe (Devilman, Violence Jack, Devilman Lady and Shin Violence Jack), or whether it is set in an alternate universe.

On 25 December 2014 Devilman Saga was released in Shogakukan. It is written and drawn by Go Nagai, and its main character is Yuki Fudo, a Japanese roboticist who is called in to study a strange and ancient mural from Antarctica. According to promotional material, it is the final chapter in the original Devilman storyline.

Trope examples:

A Date with Rosie Palms: Mikiko's (Miko) chapter in Neo-Devilman. Her first pages in the story have her touching herself while in deep thought as to why she doesn't see herself as a good girl. In this version, that's even how she became a devilman in the first place since, apparently, demons like to possess girls during their moments.

A Day in the Limelight: Neo-Devilman is basically this, given that it was made by 17 different writers/artists, everyone with a pencil and ink had a chance to share their view of the characters and portray some side-characters in a more protagonist light.

And I Must Scream: Victims of the turtle-like demon Jinmen are doomed to live an eternity as a tile in his shell.

He does it again in chapter 0 of Devilman Grimoire where he mocks a Harpy by revealing he ate her boyfriend and then eats her next.

All Your Powers Combined: Agira from Neo-Devilman. His Devilmen power is to absorb and assimilate anything into his body from weapons to demons and Devilmen. He eventually absorbs legions of demons. In this version, Agira is the unnamed giant beast from the original manga that Devilman rides into the final battle against Satan with his multi-headed dragon.

And Now for Someone Completely Different: The short sequel for the AMON manga, Strange Days features a whole new cast of characters, whom some will become Devilmen and clash at the Devilman vs. Satan final battle, the focus is Kira and Ryuu, and their band THE FLYERS.

Ascended Extra: Amon, the original demon whom Akira's Devilman form take its powers from, stops being merely a past legacy mentioned in the original manga, to being given a personality and form in the final OVA and even more in the manga with his name; in it Amon actually takes over Akira's entire body, both in demon and human form thus being promoted to protagonist.

Broad Strokes: The prequel manga Demon Knight explains a few things, like why Satan is a hermaphrodite (he/she is a forced fusion of the male Sufficiently Advanced Alien Lucifer and human girl Yuria)and the origins of demons (They are humans or aliens forcefully hybridized with animals, by God, who is a Sufficiently Advanced Alien/Ancient Astronaut). But it does directly contradict stuff found in Amon: Darkside of Devilman, Devilman Lady or even the original manga, and does not explain other stuff, like the hermaphroditism of other angels than Satan, and ignores the existence of Michael. But this is quite possibly justified by the fact it's stated to be memories of an Alternate Universe, which allows the events of the past to occur in numerous, different variations.

Brought to You by the Letter "S": The AMON manga has Akira in the iconic yellow shirt from the anime even though it follows the original manga more closely than the anime did.

Canon Welding: Almost all incarnations of Devilman (and Violence Jack) can be considered linked together thanks to The Reveal in the Amon manga that God himself put the entire universe in a time loop to punish Satan by making him constantly relive the death of the one he loves.

Jun Fudo and Aoi Kurosaki from Devilman Lady appear as teachers in Akira and Miki's school, with the former being their homeroom teacher while the latter is a P.E. teacher. They are also lesbian lovers who seemingly have no problem getting it on during the middle of the school day.

Composite Character: In Devilman vs Getter Robo Akira has the story and personality of his manga incarnation but the powers of the anime incarnation. Silene in that manga has the look of her manga version, the powers and personality of the anime version and little bits of later incarnations, including her love for Amon.

Amon himself in his manga, he is not as Obviously Evil as in the OVA nor as good and gentle as Akira; Amon is just a tad more bitter than Akira turned out to be after the Devilman transformation.

Continuity Snarl: Averted. The AMON manga makes it painfully clear that Amon took over Akira's body completely with no chance to revert back, this would negate the original story in which Akira was himself till the final clash with Satan by stating that Amon is the one in control now. Strange Days comes and has Akira in control of his body just in time for the final battle, implying that Akira was back in control sometime between AMON and Strange Days; the war went on for 20 years after all.

Violence Jack being a true sequel to this series became a shaky thread over the years after Go Nagai went on to create Devilman Lady and several other works that expanded its universe, Violence Jack came mere months after Devilman ended and Go Nagai bridged the connection to Devilman only a bit in the beginning and the at the very end, very loose connections to boot that Nagai didnít bother to expand on, meanwhile Devilman Lady was made after Violence Jack and in that series Nagai made very solid connections to Devilman. Go Nagai has also said that Violence Jack should be treated as its own universe, but that didnít stop him from again making cryptic connections to Devilman in Shin Violence Jack.

Case in point: Violence Jack treats itself as a reboot universe created an unspecified time after the world ended in Devilman, in this new world itís revealed at the very end that Satan created the Slum King out of Zenonís body to be his personal punisher, in mourning for what he did to Akira in the past, and Violence Jack himself turns into Devilman at the end to fight against Satan yet again. Come Devilman Lady and that series proposes a different following for Devilman, in it Satan was reborn as two women on earth, Zenon was made the ruler of hell in Satanís absence and Akira lived in hell all this time, he is only reborn again as the son of Jun the titular Devilman Lady.

Devilman Lady and Violence Jack contradict themselves, the only thing that can reconcile Violence Jack standing firm in the timeline is the revelation that Devilmanís world is on a constant loop thanks to Godís continuous punishment against Satan, so Violence Jack can be a separate loop.

And with Getter Robo in Devilman vs Getter Robo manga. Which features Devilman and Getter COMBINING.

There's also the appearance of the Cartoon version of Devilman in the manga Mazinger Angels. Once again, he holds his own against giant robots. Later in that series, Enma-kun passes Akira by at a festival, and they give each other a knowing, angry glance.

Chibi Chara Go Nagai World is a chibi crossover between Devilman, Mazinger Z, Getter Robo and Violence Jack which actually weirds out the titular characters, as Violence Jack is reincarnated Akira

Devilman vs Hades manga has Akira pick a fight with the Big Bad of Great Mazinger after he murdered Hades' wife trying to bring Miki back to life.

Curb-Stomp Battle: Satan vs Amon in first volume of Amon: The Darkside of Devilman. And if Satan's memories are true, his fight with Archangel Michael was even more one-sided and involved literal curbstomp.

Darker and Edgier: The 2018 anime series DEVILMAN crybaby is one of the darkest and edgiest adaptations of the series, with large amounts of blood and gore intermixed with scenes of graphic sexual content.

Death by Adaptation: In the original Devilman, Dosu Roku, Masa and the fat guy with big teeth from Dosu Roku's gang went from being Akira's enemies to his friends and allies, essentially becoming human members of the Devilman Army. While the fat guy's ultimate fate is unknown, Masa was killed trying to save Miki and Tare from the lynch mob while Dosu Roku played a major part in the AMON manga. In Devilman Grimoire, Dosu Roku and the fat guy are unceremoniously eaten alive by a demon in the first chapter, while Masa lasts until the second chapter, where his head is bitten off by Silene. This establishes the fact that Grimoire is not just a retelling of the original story but is a whole new continuity, with the ultimate fates of the main characters up in the air.

Demonic Possession: It only works properly on humans who've "lost their reason" (such as from madness, panic, rage, and the altered state you get into when participating in a drug-and-booze-fuelled party/orgy).

Depending on the Artist: Satan Ryo, in Nagai's hands s/he is not only a hermaphrodite, but Nagai draws him/her with female-like facial features and body curves, also in some designs he seems to imply that Satan's lower parts are those of a woman; other artists on the other hand, like Yu Kinutani from Amon/Strange Days and many others from Neo-Devilman, maintains Ryo's male psyche even in Satan form, in some extremes they might draw Satan with a male lower part too; and yet the breasts are present in all renditions of Satan.

Depending on the Writer: Satan's motivations for trying to bring his "order" upon earth; in some versions, he is doing it for human- and demon-kind's well-being (in his eyes) and for Akira, of course. In others, he is doing it just for Akira and no one else.

In Amon all of those motivations are, to some extent, true - Satan wants to create a better world for demons, but also wants to bring his own vision of order, which is why Amon opposes him. He reveals Akira's secret out of jealousy towards Miki because he thinks he is the only one who can save Akira.

Distaff Counterpart: Devilman Lady, and Mikimura from Strange Days, her Devilmen form is the exact female version of Akira's own Devilman, even closer for being less fanservicey than the original distaff Devilman Lady Jun.

Downer Ending: Everyone died except for Satan. LITERALLY. Averted in the NES game, however, as beating Satan in the final battle wins you a happy ending, while losing to him gets you the same ending as the manga and OAV.

Dude Looks Like a Lady: Ryo Asuka. In Nagai's hands he is very lady-like, when he is seen in Satan form Ryo becomes a woman, as Nagai draws his face with unmistakable female facial features and body curves; only other artists downplay Nagai's original design and maintain Ryo just in lady-like territory.

Even Evil Has Standards: Main difference between Amon in his manga and OVA - the former is clearly selfish and evil, but has his own set of standards and Silene seems to work as his Morality Pet. When you remove that, you get the latter.

Fake Memories: Nagai himself goes this way in his chapter for Neo-Devilman: at the climax of the Devilman vs. Satan battle, there's a flashback of Akira meeting Ryo for the first time at school, here Ryo seems to manipulate Akira's memories to make it so they already knew each other, implying that a few traces of Satan were there since the very beginning.

Akira's girlfriend Miki Makimura is a Plucky Girl with beautiful legs and a rather nice rack, but one scene that "showcases" them has her first stabbed In the Back bloodily, then subjected to an horrifying Break the Cutie at the hands of a maddened mob (including her watching as her brother Taro is murdered and beheaded and having visions of herself subjected to Body Horror) and, towards the end, her dismembered body parts (including her head, her legs and her bare torso) are put in pikes.

Satan's fate as revealed in Amon is to eternally lose the one s/he loves for all eternity as punishment for rebelling against God. The horrific treatments he's subjected to as Ryo in Violence Jack (which is also part of the time loop, meaning it's also going to happen forever) may also figure into it.

From Bad to Worse: It starts with a demonic invasion of earth and ends with the extinction of humanity.

Ghibli Hills: The late '80s OVA series was animated by Oh Production, which provided animation assistance for many Ghibli films. Kazuo Komatsubara, character designer for both the '70s TV anime and the '80s OVA, worked in that same capacity on Nausicaš of the Valley of the Wind, and thus his designs for the OVA have a very "Ghibli" look at times.

God: Creator of the Earth along with angels, humans and sometimes demons. His characterization varies between adaptations from being merely remote and alien to being God Is Evil. The only thing common is God doesn't like demons and sees them as an abomination.

God Is Evil: In Amon, where it's revealed God has everything happen in an endless loop that makes everyone suffer and die just to make Satan watch Akira die by his/her own hands for eternity. Meaning that he condemns two whole sapient species to suffer and die horribly and pointlessly over and over for eternity just to punish a single rebel (Satan, of course). At that point he can be considered damn close to early Shin Megami Tensei YHVH in terms of bastarditude. However, this detail is not consistent with all adaptations.

Gorn: Not as bad as some others, but still incredibly horrific, particularly in the OVAs.

Grey and Gray Morality: Oddly enough, no one's really evil, but no one's really good either. The demons only want humans gone because they're seen as intruders; the humans want the demons gone because they don't like the idea of dying. The only exception is God but even He has some dickery.

Have We Met Yet?: In Nagai's own chapter for Neo-Devilman, centered on the final moments of the Devilman vs. Satan battle, there's a flashback to when Ryo and Akira first met in school. In this vision it seems that Ryo implanted fake memories of Akira and him being childhood friends; Akira even wonders if they ever met before but gets familiar with Ryo shortly after.

Heroic Sacrifice: Played with when it comes to Kaim and Sirene in the second OVA. With Sirene bleeding to death, she begs Satan to give her some help, which he does in the form of a set of demons, Kaim included. Kaim refuses to fight, insisting that he give his life to provide Sirene his body to help her fight Devilman. After detonating his own head, Sirene is so devastated by Kaim's death that she manages to fuse with his body and uses the new powers it provides to defeat Devilman, before she finally dies.

Heroic Willpower: How someone can turn the tables on possessing demons and become a human/demon hybrid with the human mind still in command, i.e. a devilman.

Hotter and Sexier: Go Nagai took full advantage of Yuu Kinutani's incredibly detailed art style while making the AMON manga. While there's no explicit sex, many of the girls including Miki herself were given more curvaceous body proportions, and humanoid female demons like Siren who are mostly in the nude were often given many panels focusing on their breasts and buttocks; still Go Nagai averted the series taking the Fanservice route by simply making these "improvements" only a visual extra.

Taken Up to Eleven in Devilman Crybaby, where there are explicit sex scenes.

How Do I Shot Web?: Averted unlike most superhero works. Akira knows a good amount of Amon's movelist the instant he's merged with him inside the Sabbath. Sort of like a demonic form of Brain Uploading, since they've come to share the same body.

How We Got Here: The last volumes of AMON are spent building up the events that will happen in the first volumes, basically the first part is protagonized by Amon and the second part is protagonized by Akira.

Humans Are the Real Monsters: Initially only the demons shared this idea, since Earth belonged to them first, and they say humanity stole it from them. After demons and devilmen became public knowledge, Akira and other devilmen started to think like this too, as most of humanity went in a senseless rampage against demons, devilmen, or any living being that they thought was aiding the "monsters". This aspect is expanded further in the AMON manga, where Akira simply reaches the conclusion that humans are the real demons and that he will help anyone that values life, regardless of whether it's a demon, devilman, or even human.

When Kaim appears to assist Silene he deploys a group of minions to attack Akira. Akira dispatches the last of them by hopping into the air and impaling its body on a tree trunk.

Silene impales Akira with one of Kaim's horns; a wound which incapacitates him.

Inelegant Blubbering: A heartbreaking example in the Amon: The Apocalypse of Devilman OVA. Upon finding Miki's severed head on a pike held by a mob, Akira kills those responsible. He then clutches her head to his chest and begins to cry. Akira then falls to his knees, anguishedly sobbing and screaming as Satan and Psychogenie watch from a distance.

Infant Immortality: Horrifically subverted, as Miki's younger brother is beheaded before her very eyes. We even get to see his head and its crying face. Also earlier on when one of her brother's friends is eaten by his demon-possessed parents, while his pleas go unrecognized. Also, when a young friend of Akira's name Sachiko is eaten and absorbed by the demon Jinmen, her sorrowful face now a part of its turtle-like shell, forcing Akira to end her pseudo-life to kill the demon, with her smashed face still visible after the shell dries. Did I mention that she also tells him from the shell the exact manner of her horrific death? During the demon invasion, a mother watches her family torn apart by a tentacled demon, including her infant, before she herself is split in two from crotch to head.

However, this trope is played straight in the live action movie, where the only survivor characters are Susumu and Miko after Satan destroys the world.

Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: While nobody except maybe God is actually out-and-out evil, pretty much everyone is quick to leap to the bloodiest and goriest option possible. By the end, Akira gives up trying to care about or save anyone. If Violence Jack is Akira, it's a wonder he isn't even more callous.

Manly Tears: Akira upon being kissed by Miki for the first and only time and then seeing her disappear in the air, forever... Amon is Stupid Evil enough to laugh at him for this. As could be expected, this just doesn't end well for him.

Marshmallow Hell: Any story that features Devilman's birth through the Sabbath will usually feature Akira running face first into a topless woman on the dance floor. Whether he accidentally makes a wrong turn or gets Punched Across the Room as retribution for associating with Ryo (who had been initiating a bar brawl to speed the Sabbath up) depends on the installment.

In chapter 10 of Devilman Grimoire, Akira fights an ice demon who bears a resemblance to Ryo Asuka. The end of the chapter is very similar to the end of the original manga, except Akira and his foe's positions are reversed, with Akira revealed to be talking to the upper half of the demon's corpse. He gets better, though. Also doubles as a continuity nod.

In chapter 13 of Grimoire, after Akira and Miki have made love for the first time, Akira is shown hugging Miki against himself in a panel that is identical to the one in the original Devilman where he hugs her severed head to his chest after slaughtering the lynch mob that murdered and dismembered her.

In the Sirene The Demon Bird OVA, while Akira transforms, he has a very Violence Jack-esque features. Someone working on the OVA must've done their homework as Akira was reincarnated as the titular Violence Jack.

Not Good with Rejection: God. Satan/ Ryo rebelling against him once and refusing to follow him, has effectively derailed all of creation, any notion of a 'grand plan', and doomed the lives of everyone within it. The wrathful deity rips from the fallen angel, Akira - the only person Lucifer ever did love, over and over again in a vicious time-loop.

One Myth to Explain Them All: Akira's friend Ryo tell him that Demons once roamed the Earth before being frozen in the arctic while humans dominated the planet. He also mentions that some demons got free, and could be the true causes of monster myths like Wolfmen, Dracula, and Ogres.

Order Versus Chaos: In Amon manga Satan and God are representing two different orders - one that involves demons and one that doesn't. Which is why Amon, who is clearly chaotic, refuses to ally himself with Satan, as he sees no difference between Satan and God.

Out-of-Clothes Experience: This happens a few times in different adaptations. In the original manga, Akira tries to convince himself and the Makimuras that he is still human despite also being a devil. A vision then appears of Akira, naked, running from himself as a giant Devilman whose hands have closed around him. Akira has two more experiences in the Devilman: the Demon Bird OVA. Once as he is fighting the turtle devil Jinmen, who has his mother's soul trapped on his shell after eating her. He is almost defeated and his mother calls out to him. Akira then appears naked in his human form in a vision of an icy cave and witnesses how his mother died. The vision allows him to gain the resolve to defeat Jinmen and save his mother's trapped soul. Later, Akira has a dream where he starts clothed in a swimsuit, but becomes naked when the dream quickly shifts into a nightmare that climaxes with Miki impaled on a demon's teeth.

Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Devilman uses this to defeat Amon in the third OVA, just before he delivers the killing blow.

The Reveal: Ryo, is in fact, the hermaphrodite Satan, who took the body of a human to learn mankind's weaknesses and plot their demise.

Shapeshifter Baggage: Averted. Ryo explains that when he moved the heavily burned, demon-possessed corpse of his "father" Dr. Asuka, the body's mass was twice as what it should be.

Shrinking Violet: Akira before merging with Amon, though he reverts back to this whenever Miki flirts with him.

Slasher Smile: Though it's a given with Devilman, Akira will occasionally do this as well.

Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: An interesting case. The manga is gut-wrenchingly cynical but Nagai (who wrote Devilman as a cautionary tale) is firmly idealistic and believes that humanity is heading for a bright future. The writing process took such a heavy toll on him that he had to write the muchLighter and SofterMazinger Z on the side to blow off steam.

Stupid Evil: Amon at one point in the Apocalypse of Devilman OVA, but the prize goes to the demon sent to kill Miki and Michiru in Devilman vs Getter Robo - Akira saves Miki and the demon escapes with Michiru, but, instead of outright killing her, he wastes time wondering if he should eat or rape her and concludes to do both right before Akira finds them and kills him.

Sufficiently Advanced Alien /Ancient Astronauts: What God, and by extension Satan, Amon and Sirene are revealed to originally have been in Demon Knight, the official prequel manga to Devilman. Seems to outright contradict some important story elements from both the original manga, and Amon: Darkside of Devilman, but look up Broad Strokes above.

Summoning Ritual: Used by Miki in Devilman Grimoire to summon demons.Unfortunately actual demons show up and they weren't summoned by the ritual.

Super-Powered Evil Side: Amon was originally this, but he transcended to pure evil after Miki Makamura got killed. Might be an Unbuilt Trope as it's probably one of the first if not the first use of it in manga and one of the rare instances that shows how having one corrupts and changes a once cowardly boy into a Blood Knight.

Sure, Let's Go with That: When one of the mob calls Miki a witch, in the heat of the moment, she's gloats that she is a witch and warns them not to underestimate her. But as the mob begins to surround her, she says she's not a witch.

While Miki became a non-action girl, and Ryu got to show off his shooting skills later, in the OVA Akira shows some bravery, as well as that missing toughness not seen in the manga. He stands up to three goons who killed nearly all the rabbits in a pen, all except one, he takes a bike chain to the head and several punches but refuses to let them have the rabbit. They back off when their leader is impressed.

Also in Devilman Grimoire, after losing one of his feet, Akira decides to stay behind and let the demons devour him in order to buy time for Miki to escape.

After ending up stuffed into the fridge in the original manga and a mute, quadruple-amputee sex slave in Violence Jack, Miki has become this in the 2010s. She becomes a Getter pilot in Devilman vs Getter Robo, and in Devilman Grimoire she's a witch who later becomes a Devilman.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy